Part 41 (1/2)
”Keep out of here. I'll send your message when I'm through with this,”
and the instrument clicked on. Then the Swede resigned himself, watching sullenly.
”Everybody has to take his turn,” said the boy at last. ”You can't cut in like that.” The boy was newly promoted and felt his importance. He took the soiled sc.r.a.p of paper held out to him. It was written over in a clear, bold hand. ”This isn't signed. Who sends this?”
”You make it yust lak it iss. I send dot.”
”Well, sign it.” He pushed a pen toward him, and the Swede took it in clumsy fingers and wrote laboriously, ”Nels Nelson.”
”You didn't write this message?”
”No. I vork by de hotel, und I get a man write it.”
”It isn't dated. Been carrying it around in your pocket a good while I guess. Better date it.”
”Date it?”
”Yes. Put down the time you send, you know.”
”Oh, dat's not'ing. He know putty goot when he get it.”
”Very well. 'To Mr. John Thomas,--State Street, Chicago. Job's ready.
Come along.' Who's job is it? Yours?”
”No. It's hees yob yet. You mak it go to-night, all right. Goot night.
I pay it now, yas. Vell, goot night.”
He paid the boy and slipped out into the shadows of the street, and again making the detour so that he came to the hotel from the rear, he pa.s.sed the stables, and before climbing to his cupboard of a room at the top of the building, he stepped round to the side and looked in at the dining room windows, and there he saw the young man seated at supper.
”All right,” he said softly.
The omnibus sent regularly by the hotel management brought only one pa.s.senger from the early train next day. Times had been dull of late and travel had greatly fallen off, as the proprietor complained. There was nothing unusual about this pa.s.senger,--the ordinary traveling man, representing a well-known New York dry-goods house.
Nels Nelson drove the omnibus. He had done so ever since Elder Craigmile went to Scotland with his wife. The young man he had found on the river bluff was pacing the hotel veranda as he drove up, and Nels Nelson glanced at him, and into the eyes of the traveling man, as he handed down the latter's heavy valise.
Standing at the desk, the newcomer chatted with the clerk as he wrote his name under that of the last arrival the day before.
”Harry King,” he read. ”Came yesterday. Many stopping here now? Times hard! I guess so! Nothing doing in my line. n.o.body wants a thing.
Guess I'll leave the road and 'go west, young man,' as old Greeley advises. What line is King in? Do' know? Is that him going into the dining room? Guess I'll follow and fill up. Anything good to eat here?”
In the dining room he indicated to the waiter by a nod of his head the seat opposite Harry King, and immediately entered into a free and easy conversation, giving him a history of his disappointments in the way of trade, and reiterating his determination to ”go west, young man.”
He hardly glanced at Harry, but ate rapidly, stowing away all within reach, until the meal was half through, then he looked up and asked abruptly, ”What line are you in, may I ask?”
”Certainly you may ask, but I can't tell you. I would be glad to do so if I knew myself.”
”Ever think of going west?”
”I've just come from there--or almost there--whereever it is.”